failed spectacularly in part becauseofpaulryan. youare against the basic problem thatifpaulryanhadvoted for the simpson-bowles proposal and if we had gotten through congress with president obama's support, obama would get the credit and he would be waltzing to a piece of cake reelection. i do think -- and there is the third problem. peter orszag, the head of the budget bureau wrote an op-ed in the new york times saying my own instincts, problem with the united states is too much democracy. we can't get anything done. if we actually try to do it through elections and procedures what we need are ever more expert commissions that will make decisions for us. maybe that is true but it should be recognized that if that is the solution to our problem, we should stop traveling to other countries around the world that what they need is more democracy because in fact we would have come to the conclusion that democracy doesn't really work. >> i really welcome this. my understanding is the newspapers and the constitution, grew out of a lot of study of constitutions across country and so forth

deputy, the majority leader, calls peoplelikepaulryan, whois now running for vice president. .. >> if you keep doing this, you are going to risk your speakership. the president said when i talked to him, interestingly enough, he said in fixing -- he realizes the magnitude of all of this, as does speaker boehner, key democrats, key republicans realize what it is. and the president literally said to me, i would willingly lose an election if i could solve these problems. it is that serious. tim geithner, the treasury secretary, in the book is quoted thousands of words telling the president, you have got to do something about this problem. we have to fix it. you literally, it's not that we're going to close down the government, we will close down the american economy and, in turn, the global economy. if they do not solve the issue of this runaway spending, get some way to stop borrowing in excess, he tells the president of the united states if we default on this, on our obligations and our ious, we will trigger a depression worse than the 1930s. anybody here remember the 19 1930

having to cut, and we'reseeingpaulryanandhis friends and colleagues in the house proposing a budget that is truly astonishing and absolutely horrible, both in terms of what it does to people of the lower end, and also the fact is contains an incredible amount of further tax cutting at the top, robin hood would be turning over in his grave i think. [laughter] the president clinton face -- the preface of my book is to put things in a larger context, to talk a little bit, and when you have a chance to read the book about why we are where we are on poverty and to look ahead a little bit about what we need to do, and, of course, the harder question for all of us is how we can create a politics where these issues and many others take a different turn, a better turn, in our country. ronald reagan said we fought a war on poverty and poverty won. well well-known, everybody heard that. the first thing i want to say, and i, of course, say in the book is that ronald reagan was wrong. [laughter] about many things. [laughter] the fact is, and we need to celebrate this that the public policies tha

only by going hard left and buying completely partisan rhetoric,callingpaulryantobeat up on him in public, accusing doctors of wanting to grab people and cut their tonsils out, and if you liked your health insurance, you could keep it, and if you like your doctor, you can keep them, that's been broken. calling on republicans to have dirty air and dirty water. that's not consistent with our values. all we have to do is remind people we don't want four more years of chicago style politics, and what happens if he's relegislated and he's not even restrained by the prospect of the re-election campaign? if that happens, the hhs regulation, recess appointments when the senate is not in, executive order, setting aside law and creates a new work permit without the dream act kids. whether or not you're for or against it, he act contrary to law. he's acted in a wreckless way. i don't know what the next four years would be. we have to remind people about that. i'm an optimist. i think we're going to win, win the senate as well, whether it's connie mack in florida or george allen in virginia